LOGAN — A tradition in Cache Valley since 1994, Utah State could be hosting its final holiday basketball tournament at the Spectrum this week.
Officially known this year as the Global Hoops Sports Showcase sponsored by Gossner Foods, the event started as the Gossner Foods Classic in 1994. While the tourney has grown from four games to six games and been organized by different groups in recent years, the Aggies have held an event sponsored by Gossner Foods every year since with the exception of 2006.
"These on-campus, multi-team events are really getting hard to fill and the companies that fill these tournaments are asking for more and more money, but are getting less and less teams to come and fill the field," USU head coach Tim Duryea explained. "It is really hard to have a tournament with so many other multi-team events across the country in vacation spots, warm weather spots, and with a lot of TV involved in those other events. It is just really hard to host a tournament like this, but we have loved the Gossners over the years and it has been phenomenal for our program. I also think it has been phenomenal for the community around the holidays to be able to watch college basketball around Christmas, I think, is a real luxury."
"…But this will give us a chance to go out and play in other events," Duryea added. "You can only play in one a year. Our program will be able to get some exposure in some other events and then in the future, or periodically, we can come back and have the Gossners."
In the meantime, the Aggies, who will reportedly play in the Cancun Challenge in Mexico in November 2016 against a field including Purdue, Texas Tech and Auburn, is focused on this year's event in Cache Valley.
Utah State (5-3) will face UT Rio Grande Valley (3-7) Monday at 8 p.m., following the tourney opener between North Dakota State (7-3) and Idaho State (3-5). The Aggies will then take on ISU in the late game on Tuesday, and NDSU in the late game Wednesday night.
Utah State, which suffered its first Gossner Foods tourney loss ever last year to South Dakota State, comes into Monday's game having lost its last two games and three of its last four. UT Rio Grande Valley, in its first-year of existence following the combining of Texas-Pan American and Texas-Brownsville, is a member of USU's former home, the Western Athletic Conference.
Idaho State, which has easily been the most prolific visitor to USU's holiday tournament, have lost 15 straight games to the Aggies dating back to the 1981-82 season and are 2-16 all-time against USU in Logan.
North Dakota State comes into this week's tourney with the most victories of anyone in the field, and NDSU's only losses have come on the road at Illinois, Iowa State and Southern Miss. Best known for upsetting Oklahoma in the first round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament, the Bison won 23 games last season under first-year head coach David Richman.
The Aggies, who were already extremely thin on big bodies, could be forced to play even smaller this week after starting center Elston Jones separated a shoulder in practice last Wednesday.
"Hopefully by Monday he will be able to play," Duryea said of Jones. "He may not be back at 100 percent, but he'll be working his way back to that throughout the tournament."
"That spot has kind of been cursed so far, and we’ve adjusted with playing smaller," Duryea continued. "We have experimented with some different lineups in practice, and with some things we may have to do in the event that Elston can’t play."